I wasn’t in New York on March 1, 1979. Hell, I was still in high school. But a show that would ultimately change my life, and at the same time, set a new high standard for Broadway musicals opened that day: Stephen Sondheim & Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd.
This darkly macabre musical with a wicked sense of humor starred Angela Lansbury (who would win one of her Tony Awards for her performance) as “Mrs. Lovett.” Len Cariou (who also won a Tony Award) played the title character.
In the musical a barber named Benjamin Barker (Cariou) is rescued at seat by a young sailor named Anthony (Victor Garber). Barker has escaped from prison. He returns to London where he had been sent away on trumped up charges by Judge Turpin (Edmund Lyndeck). The judge wanted to take full advantage of Barker’s wife, Lucy, and Barker’s daughter, Johanna (Sarah Rice.) Barker changes his name to “Sweeney Todd” and plans to reopen his barbershop with the goal of exacting revenge on all those who conspired to take him from his family. He goes to the former location of that barbershop above a meat pie shop owned by Nelly Lovett (Lansbury.) She offers to help him in ways best revealed by seeing the show.
I saw Sweeney Todd when it came to Los Angeles. Lansbury was doing the tour with George Hearn. I took my aunt to see the show. She was, after all, the woman who got me interested in musical theatre when she took me to see A Chorus Line for my 16th birthday.
At intermission I asked her what she thought of the show. She asked for my opinion first. I refused and she asked if we could go home – she hated it. I profoundly disagreed with her and said we couldn’t as I was making my way to the box office to buy a ticket for another performance. (Oh the power of being the one driving!)
To the day she died, she steadfastly hated the show. And I have never loved a show as much. By the way, that second performance I saw turned out to be Lansbury’s final performance in the role.
I once had the opportunity to speak with Angela Lansbury about something that happened in that final performance. During “A Little Priest,” Mrs. Lovett is pounding away at some pie dough. At one pivotal moment in the song, Lansbury hit the dough and flour went flying all over her and Hearn. It was a joke played on them by someone in the production. They broke character and laughed for what seemed like several minutes. The orchestra played along (and perhaps were in on the joke, we’ll never know,) and it was a truly magical moment.
Here’s what she said of that prank and if she knew who had put the flour in the dough.
“Absolutely not. We did not. We were shocked. It was funny. We knew it was our last show. We had taped the show that week. We knew it was in the can as they say, which was a vast relief and a great pleasure knowing it would be seen again. At that time it really was a shocker. Yes, of course we were covered in flour, at least I was. I never stopped fiddling around with the dough. That’s part of the training of the job – to deal with the dough. It was real dough. It wasn’t make believe. It’s lovely. Laughter in the theatre is one of the great tonics for actors and certainly Mrs. Lovett was a funny character and I got a tremendous response playing that role which was really quite wonderful.”
What makes Sweeney Todd such a landmark show? In my humble opinion it is the darkness of the material combined with a wicked sense of humor. No show on Broadway before it had so successfully married the two. But above all, it is the music. Sondheim’s music and lyrics for Sweeney Todd are the best Broadway has ever seen or heard – again, in my opinion. Though sometimes produced by opera companies, and though it does feel truly operatic in both scope and story, it is a musical first and foremost.
I’ve seen multiple productions of Sweeney Todd since that wondrous day at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion so many years ago. Some have been great (and for my money, even better than the original production) and some have been positively dreadful. But that first performance was the moment I found “musical theatre religion.” I’ve been a passionate member of the congregation ever since.